A letter writer to a British newspaper last week enthusiastically
observed that Giacomo Puccini showed uncanny foresight when he named
two characters in his opera Ping and Pong. Perhaps so. The China of the
opera was a place gilded with unreality; but what excited Americans
last week about the astounding venture in Ping Pong diplomacy was that
China was becoming real.

After more than two decades of frozen mutual hostility, the U.S. and
China were beginning to talk and thus in a sense...